179 travelers at this place:

Hadn't thought too much about Pisa before heading there to see the Leaning Tower and to be honest didn't think too much about it having been there. Having looked for parking beforehand a few websites had mentioned avoiding certain carparks for fear of thieves and as I am on permanent crimewatch since the bikes were stolen I was feeling wary anyway! When you arrive it does seem pretty dodgy as every corner there's a chap trying to sell you something. At least the Prada bag there may not have cost as much in Milan...

Went to see the Tower but decided against going inside. The area where the Tower is, with the Baptistry and Duomo - the only three things referred to in the guidebook and I can kinda see why - is immaculate and full of tourists, but otherwise the city appears to be made up of university buildings, tourist shops and restaurants. Altogether we were in and out within about an hour :)

This did however allow us to get back in time for a swim in the pool, as we have done - in typical Brits on holidays style - everyday. Have attached a picture of the pool and the view.

Typing this from inside the tent as a massive thunderstorm is raging above us. Onto Rome tomorrow which I think will look even betterRead more

Love the pool! We found that there were people tripping you up to sell you stuff in Italy, in big cities particularly. It looks as though you might not be seeing Sienna- that was lovely, really, I preferred it to Florence. Hope Rome is good, always looks amazing.! Enjoy! X

Pisa is less than an hour train ride from Florence, travelling the infamous Trenitalia. We had done some research on the quickest and cheapest way to get to Pisa. We even went to the nearest train station to check on the ticket machine to confirm. All signs pointed to buying the tickets prior to boarding. So we woke early and walked to the main central station to find that the tickets for some reason had doubled in price. For a moment, it felt like we were on the Amazing Race and needed to board the train in less than 7 minutes. This was after getting lost on the way to the station, eating up our time buffer. Tasks were divided up: Ricky books tickets online and Jason checks the platform number. With 3 minutes to departure, we boarded the train en route to Pisa.

We had heard that Pisa wasn't worth a long visit, but we were pleasantly surprised. We couldn't visit Italy and not visit the nation's most famous monument: the Tower of Pisa. Having left before the crack of dawn, a strategy that Jason seems to be implementing on a more frequent basis, got us to the learning tower before hordes of tourists descended upon the monument. Our expectations were not high. In fact, we had read that the lean had been slightly corrected. So we were expecting a slightly leaning Tower of Pisa. But the Tower did not disappoint. It has hard not to think of all the history behind the tower, particularly Galileo’s experiment that disproved the ancient theories of gravity. And of course, there's the opportunity to take a cliché picture leaning on the leaning Tower of Pisa or trying to push it over.

After these past days in cities it was time for less busy area’s. On our way to the coast with destination Lido (near Viareggio) we had to stop at Pisa and take some typical touristic shots.
We made a lot in the hope of being original or better and had a lot of fun doing this. The tower is famous for standing in this angle and I also tried to make this a bigger angle in some ways ;-).
With seeing this highlight we didn’t stay longer in Pisa, Lucca was our next stop and is less touristic and less busy. For this time of year it wasn’t that busy anyway and in Lucca we parked inside the walled city and rented some bikes to bike over the Wall.
This reminded me of the Wall of Xi-an in China where I also rented a bike to bike on the wall around the city. Also this time we rode the track twice, one clock wise and one counter clock wise :-D. We brought the bikes back and went for diner in the centre of Lucca.
On a nice square, we enjoyed some food & drinks outside and moved to our accommodation in Lido.Read more

Super busy day today, one of the busiest we've had in ages! Up early and out the door, bidding a fond farewell to Cinque Terre. Caught the all stations train eastwards to La Spezia, the small city just outside the bounds of the national park. Here we changed again and caught the train to Pisa.

Pisa is obviously well known for the Leaning Tower, but the World Heritage site here actually covers not just the tower, but also the Cathedral and the Baptistry as well. We dropped our luggage at the station (4 euros per item was a bit steep, but the lady compromised and let us leave two small and one large piece for 8 euros).

As is often the case, the station was a fair way from the old centre, so we caught a bus across town to where the complex is located. It's an odd sight to see - something so familiar, and yet actually in front of you for the first time. The famous tower is actually the bell tower for the cathedral, and to my amazement the cathedral is a grand building of white marble - extremely beautiful and impressive. I've seen the tower so many times, it seems incredible I'd never really seen the cathedral before!

Wandered into the complex and decided to check things out. Quite a few tourists around for the first time in a while, though obviously nowhere near as bad as it gets in summer! Lots of people doing the lame "holding up the tower" photo pose which I think is trite as hell, and supremely uncreative. Doing it with a dog though is totally different, though I realised later it almost looks like he's throwing a Hitler salute.

The tower climb is 20 euros each, so we'd decided to pass on that, but the Cathedral was free so we went turn about inside it. Very impressive! Obviously quite similar to a lot of cathedrals we've been in, but this was built almost entirely of white marble - Pisa was very rich in its day, and the enormous marble quarries of Carrara aren't too far away (we'd been past some of them on the train).

The Bapistry was quite cool as well, a very large domed structure with almost perfect acoustics. I was lucky enough to be inside when a ticket checker wandered over to the middle and started singing which sounded super cool. It was a bit overpriced though at 6 euros; not a whole lot to see inside.

Finally we looked at the tower. The reason it leans so much is because it's 60 metres tall and made of marble, but the foundations are only 3 metres deep and in soft soil rather than rock. It took 200 years to build, though it was on hold for about 100 years while they fought a war with Genoa. The lean began almost immediately after only a couple of years, when they'd only built the first two levels. To counter-balance it, the upper floors are actually trapezoidal - the lower side of the lean has taller walls than the higher side, if that makes sense. And the crown on top is almost vertical.

It was slowly leaning further and further over the years, until it got to about 5.5 degrees in the early 90s. After about 10 years of engineering, it now leans about 3.5 degrees, isn't moving, and will be stable for a couple of hundred years. Lucky!

Visit finished, we caught the bus back to the station and grabbed a late lunch at McDonalds (it was now around 2:30pm) and waited for the train. Eventually it arrived and we piled on, heading for Florence which only took an hour or so.

Our place was pretty easy to find, just a couple of blocks from the cathedral but out of the tourist area thankfully. Only problem was that there was absolutely no grass around for Schnitzel to pee on! Eventually had to settle for taking him to a grassed plaza about five minutes away - annoying. Stayed in for dinner with some cold cuts, cheese, and bread.Read more

Today we were in Port for 12 hours. Troi and I went off ship from about 9 until 2.

NCL had a 5 euro shuttle bus to get us of the pier to the Terminal. Then we took a 15 Euro bus trip to Pisa, about 45 minutes from Livorno. Then we were given close to two hours at the Tower.

Adequate signs (we found our way to the tower) directed us the 15 minute easy walk to the entrance.

We tried that morning to book tickets online but it wasn't possible. So we went directly to the ticket office. We could get Tix to walk up the tower at 11:30, about 45 minutes after our arrival. Ticket included entrance to the Cathedral as well.

Girl at the desk told us to leave our bags behind the tower. I took a little walk around the back side of the tower but couldn't see what she was talking about so asked. The cloakroom was actually a good 200m away. We had to have our bags dropped off and be in the line 10 minutes before out time. Many missed the bag information. If you are not there at the designated time you lose your spot and your entrance fee.

There are something like 284 steps. Open to the public are 257 in two different sections. The last couple of floors is up to where the bells are. We just happened to be there at noon, when the bells were rung. Quite loud, but it made our trip upstairs a little interesting.

The climb up was weird, you have no real concept of where you are - on the up or down side of the 'lean' - but you find that the climb is easier or harder. Sometimes you sort of fall into the outside wall than somewhere else you fall onto the inside wall. Read more

But the tower is breathtaking. To see it at last, after first learning about in maybe 50 yrs ago at school...wow. Truckloads of visitors, well, busloads I guess. Parking for maybe 150-200 coaches, but thankfully not full! (tourism is down a lot due to the economy and security concerns in Europe it seems...lucky us!). Many hawkers with all manner of relevant and irrelevant trinkets...from tower souvenirs to blingy rap-themed ball-caps...duh??? Just thousands of people but free entry to see the Tower and Cathedral (the tower was originally to be a bell-tower for the Cathedral. Oops!).Read more

Who doesn't know the leaning tower of Pisa? Funny how one man's mistake in 11th century lead to world famous attraction. Beside the leaning bell tower(that you can actually visit!) there are also cathedral and baptistry on the square. Amazing sights. And let me tell you, it looks bigger in person😉